Product Specifications

Teaching materials to accompany:

Product Design and Development
Chapter 6
Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger
5th Edition, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2012.

Product Design and Development

Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger
5th edition, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Chapter Table of Contents:
1.Introduction
2.Development Processes and Organizations
3.Opportunity Identification
4.Product Planning
5.Identifying Customer Needs
6.Product Specifications
7.Concept Generation
8.Concept Selection
9.Concept Testing
10.Product Architecture
11.Industrial Design
12.Design for Environment
13.Design for Manufacturing
14.Prototyping
15.Robust Design
16.Patents and Intellectual Property
17.Product Development Economics
18.Managing Projects

Concept Development Process

Mission
Statement

Identify
Customer
Needs

Establish
Target
Specifications

Generate
Product
Concepts

Select
Product
Concept(s)

Test
Product
Concept(s)

Set
Final
Specifications

Plan
Downstream
Development

Perform Economic Analysis

Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes

Target Specs

Final Specs

Based on customer needs

and benchmarking

Based on selected concept,

feasibility, models, testing,
and trade-offs

Development
Plan

Outline

Nature of specifications
Spec vs. specs.
Target vs. final specs.
Process for setting target specs
Process for setting final specs

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Spec vs. Specs

A spec consists of a metric, a unit, and
a value
Specs has a set of specs.

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Target vs. Final Specs

Target specs: the hope and aspiration
of the design (ideal and marginal)
Refined specs: trade-offs among
different desired characteristics.
Intermediate specs

Final specs
It is in the projects contract book
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Nature of Specifications
The reference point for functionality
design and quality planning
A product assembly usually requires a
hierarchy of specs, for the final product
and each of its components

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The Product Specs Process

1. Set Target Specifications
Based on customer needs and benchmarks
Develop metrics for each need
Set ideal and acceptable values

2. Refine Specifications
Based on selected concept and feasibility testing
Technical and economic modeling
Trade-offs are critical

3. Reflect on the Results and the Process

Critical for ongoing improvement

Procedure for establishing

target specifications
1. Identify a list of metrics and measurement
units that sufficiently address the needs
2. Collect the competitive benchmarking
information
3. Set ideal and marginally acceptable target
values for each metric (using at least, at
most, between, exactly, etc.)
4. Reflect on the results and the process
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Process for setting the final

specifications
1. Develop technical models to assess technical feasibility. The
input is design variable and the output is a measurement using
a metric.
2. Develop a cost model of the product.
3. Refine the specifications, making tradeoffs, where necessary to
form a competitive map.
4. Flow down the final overall specs to specs for each
subsystem (component and part).
5. Reflect on the results to see
Whether the product is a winner, and/or
How much uncertainty there is in the technical and cost model, or
Whether there is a need to develop a better technical model.
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Product Specifications Example:

Mountain Bike Suspension Fork

Start with the Customer Needs

Metrics Exercise:
Ball Point Pen
Customer Need:
The pen writes smoothly.

Establish Metrics and Units

Link Metrics to Needs

Benchmark on Customer Needs

Benchmark on Metrics

Assign Marginal and Ideal Values

Concept Development Process

Mission
Statement

Identify
Customer
Needs

Establish
Target
Specifications

Generate
Product
Concepts

Select
Product
Concept(s)

Test
Product
Concept(s)

Set
Final
Specifications

Plan
Downstream
Development

Perform Economic Analysis

Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes

Target Specs

Final Specs

Based on customer needs

and benchmarking

Based on selected concept,

feasibility, models, testing,
and trade-offs

Development
Plan

Crunch

Perceptual Mapping Exercise

KitKat
Nestl
Crunch

Opportunity?

Hersheys
w/ Almonds

Hersheys
Milk Chocolate

Chocolate

Specification Trade-offs
Estimated Manufacturing Cost ($)

Estimated Mfg. Cost ($)

120
Rox Tahx Ti 21
110
Maniray 2

Trade-off Curves
for Three Concepts

Gunhill Head
Shox

100
90

Rox Tahx Quadra

80

Tonka Pro

marginal values

70
ST Tritrack
60

ideal values

50
3

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

Score on
on Monster
Monster (Gs)
Score
(Gs)

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Set Final Specifications

Quality Function Deployment

(House of Quality)
technical
correlations
relative
importance

customer
needs

engineering
metrics

relationships between
customer needs and
engineering metrics

target and final specs

benchmarking
on needs

Profit margin

Where:
M: profit margin
P: price
C: cost

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Target Cost
Where:
C = target cost
P = price to the end user
Mi = the margin at the ith stage.

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Mark up
Markup = P/C - 1
Where:
P: price
C: cost

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Chapter 6 HW
Metric Exercise: Ball Point Pen

Identify five possible metrics and the unit of measure for a customer
need as stated below:

The pen writes smoothly.

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